In many situations text templates (also called forms) are used to structure and standardize documents. These templates guarantee more complete, concise and consistent document content.
Conventionally, templates are created by one group of users, but used by another group of users to create documents. This separation into two groups is usually due to the fact that creating templates requires additional skills and/or rights. Often, specific “administration” modes and/or views of word processing systems are required to change or create templates. In some cases, completely separate software applications are used to change or create templates. This is restrictive in cases that frequently require creating new templates or changing existing templates. This is also restrictive in situations that require relatively frequent derivation of additional templates from existing ones.
Document templates are conventionally provided in libraries (e.g., stored on one or more file shares and/or web servers). The document templates are either: copied/downloaded to the local file system; installed using, for example, a macro of a word processor or dedicated software application; or accessed remotely (e.g., at one or more file shares and/or web servers).
After selecting/opening a template, the template can be edited and saved as a document. If a user wants to create a variant of a template, then the user must either learn to create templates or request that a responsible person/department in his organization create the template.